A Good Man Is Hard To Find

To me nothing screams 'BEACH BOOK!' like a good short story collection. You can read a story, jump in the ocean. Read a story, fly a kite. Read a story, talk to Aunt Beth about your adopted cousin Nathan. Read a story, play whiffle ball Home run derby with your nephew. You get the idea. So over the next couple weeks I am going to recommend my favorite short story collections.

Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find is a great read. I know, you hear the title and you think it's some sort of Sandra Bullock film. But it's not. It's a collection of Southern Gothic tales filled with distorted Catholic imagery. The collection is named after the first story in the book. Its about a family with a pushy grandmother that gets murdered by a serial killer named the misfit. There's a good chance that you've read it, as it has been anthologized in plenty of high school literature text books.

That's it. Short stories= short recommends.

Ziggy's Snoballs

Near the conclusion of a family gathering yesterday Heather and I decided to have a good, old-fashioned foot race. She decided actually and I reluctantly agreed. After giving her a good five foot head start I proceeded to race her into the ground in front of my whole family. In front of my uncle, two cousins, and father anyway...far from my whole family. The word was that I ran like lighting, Forrest Gump, or a nerd. I'm not sure what the final decision was. We'll go with lightning for the sake of this blog. This post isn't about footraces, although I do recommend a good foot race anytime you have a worthy competitor close-by. I'll take anybody anytime of day and I urge you to challenge me to that.

Foot races are summery. After this footrace I realized that I hadn't really done much of anything summery this whole (summer). July is half-over and I haven't even had a snowball from my favorite Russian snowball stand which is only blocks away from my house. There are plenty of things that I like to do in the summertime, but I think this summer has felt a lot less like summer (even though it has been pretty hot out) because I haven't made it a point to do most of them. Some of my favorite summer things that have been missing this year:

1. Ziggy's No-Balls
2. Sunday Baseball/Softball
3. Ocean City, no matter how dirty
4. Pretty Boy Reservoir
5. Andy Nelson's for lunch
6. Rita's Italian Ice
7. Wild Wood NJ

Now that I think about it I haven't even been in a pool yet this summer, and summer is more on the way out than on the way in. Some of these things I need to take care of fast. Ocean City might not happen, and I'm OK with this. I suspect that I would gladly substitute
Switzerland for OC any summer of my life. Swimming in Pretty Boy Reservoir, no matter how illegal it becomes, is something anyone living in the Baltimore area should do at least once a summer. If you don't know where to go, I'll give you the spot. The other things on the list (minus Wild Wood) I can take care of pretty easily.

Possibly the biggest hole in my summer fun has been no visits to my good friends Ziggy and Ziggy's wife at No-Balls snowball stand in Parkville. It is called no balls because a sign that should read Sno-balls has been without lights in the first "s" for as long as I've been going there. Without going into a series description of what I get there (because everyone has different no-ball tastes) I will just tell you that they are hands down, without any competition the best snowballs that I get in Baltimore. You want a delux delight reeces peanut butter cup snowball? You got it. Ziggy's got you covered. Even if it makes the thirty people behind you really mad because Ziggy puts everything he's got into that four dollar snowball, and it always takes at least two minutes to make. You like the standards? They've got the standards, and they shave their ice so it always tastes better. Can't decide on one standard? Get three flavors rainbowed! Man, this place is awesome. Just talking about it makes me want one. How do you get there? You can't really google it because I don't know the technical name of the place (it might be Ziggy's, but it might not). It is pretty much on the corner of Old Harford Road and Putty Hill, just up the hill from the Charcoal Grille. More detailed directions are available upon request.

So here's my question for the readers. What are your absolute favorite summery things to do? Things that if you didn't do them, it just wouldn't feel like summer. Sound off.

*Disclaimer: The snowball pictured is not a Ziggy's No-Ball. It isn't even a snowball that I would ever purchase myself. But it is the best I could find. No marshmellow here.

Here's Your Chance + Dog In Hat

Ricky, you can take today if you'd like. I'm really looking forward to these recommends you are waiting to get out. If I posted today I would probably just tell people to come to The Windup Space tonight at 9pm, and no one wants to hear about that.

Just in case Ricky doesn't post, to make it worth your trip to FR today here is a picture of a little dog in a littler hat:

My apologies

I apologize to everyone for not having a post last week. I was out of town and was denied the internet access that I was expecting. Regretfully, I am neglecting my duties this week as well. I have been in a three-day training that continues today. The fact that I am posting this (from work) at 6:49am should indicate my dedication and desire to not just leave you hanging. I feel like I have some good recommends to make.

I'll make up the post, I promise, even if I have to steal one of Adam's days. I hope I didn't ruin the blog for two weeks and possibly forever.

Food from my vacation

So I've been on vacation a lot lately. Part of the fun of being on vacation is going to places you wouldn't normally find around here for eats. So I've outlined a few good ones that I did while away.

Sonic
These places aren't in Maryland at all, but boy do they have some nice food on their menu! I've been here a few times, and it's really hard to decide what to get. They may have the best drink selection of any fast food place I've ever been to. What they do well:

1. Shakes. My favorite is the Orange slush treat. It's really amazing. Tastes like an orange creamsicle. The flavors available for the shakes alone are something you'd probably only find here.
2. Breakfast all day long.
3. Lime Aid. Comes in several flavors. Also, slush versions.
4. Tater Tots. Instead of fries!
5. The drive-in style ordering.

In 'N Out Burger
This is my favorite fast food place of all time. I love this place more than any other. I don't expect everyone to agree, but if you ever are in California, for God's sake, find one. The burgers are great because everything about is fresh. I strongly urge you to try the regular burger first. It has lettuce, tomato, thousand island, etc. The fries are shoe string style. Crunchy and delicious. Looking at their menu is the complete opposite of Sonic. They only have 3 combos you can get. A single burger/cheeseburger/double cheeeseburger. Sometimes it's nice not having to pick from so many things. The bad thing is they are adamant about not expanding anywhere east of Nevada. Something to do with their strict meat storage policy.

Cracker Barrel
So for our beach trip that Myers and I took, we kept talking about how we were going to stop at Cracker Barrel on our way back. The more we talked about it, the more excited about it I got. I had one of the best turkey dinners there back when I was younger. As it turns out, the turkey dinners are only served on Thursdays. What I got instead was a boneless chicken breast dinner, and it was pretty delicious. I'll go here again when I want chicken or turkey with mash potatoes, and corn muffins. Also, have you played this peg game they have there? It's pretty fun.

5 Things on Both Sides

Ricky was out of town this week, or on vacation, or something. And I don't post on holidays. And everyone had off on Friday, right? If you didn't have off on Friday and you were looking for a Friends Recommends post I am very sorry. I don't know who you could be, but I am sorry. Also, I was in Buffalo/Ithaca for wedding things all weekend and hadn't thought much about F.R. So while we are being honest, this is a pretty off-the-cuff kind of post.

Here are Five things I've been enjoying a lot lately (in no particular order). And here are Five things I have been checking out, but not enjoying so much lately:

5 Things I Like:

1) Dirty Projectors--Bitte Orca--I already wrote a blog post about this one. But I checked it out another time coming back from Ithaca to Baltimore today and it only gets better. I really recommend this one.

2) Blond Redhead--Misery is a Butterfly--I've had friends try to get me into Blond Redhead a couple of times in the past. Initially I thought they were terrible, and then with some Huff recommends I started liking them. Then another friend very recently recommended this album and I've gone from tolerance to being a legit fan. Certainly worth the time.

3) Arrested Development--OK this should have been a number one. Good thing this list wasn't in any kind of order. I had really liked Arrested Development before (having seen random episodes here and there) but only when I watched the entire series all the way through did I really appreciate it to the fullest. This is comedic genius and could very well be the funniest thing I have ever experienced. I was sad to see the last episode but can't wait for the movie.

4) Igor Stravinsky--Currently rediscovering my favorite classical composer, and finding new things to love about it in the process. For newcomers to Stravinsky's music The Rite of Spring and The Firebird are often recommended classics (rightly so) but try something like Symphonies of Wind Instruments for a very short but great introduction (I think the whole piece is under 10 minutes). Youtube clip:



5) Pavement--Quartet Offensive is doing a Pavement cover show at the end of August at The Ottobar, so we've been listening to a lot figuring out what we want to play. I don't get tired of them, especially Brighten the Corners.

5 Things I Haven't Liked So Far:

1) Of Montreal--Skeletal Lamping--Ugh, I should have listened to brotherHop about this one. What a disappointment after Hissing Fauna. I'm not sure what it is (maybe I sort of am) but I don't like it.

2) Eels--Hombre Loco--In it's defense I have only listened once. But this thing got pretty rave reviews, and I've been an Eels fan in the past. This one just isn't doing it for me right now. Hopefully it could grow on me.

3) Xiu Xiu--The Air Force--That's all I have to say about this one. Didn't get it. Tried hard, but still didn't get it.

4) Running With Scissors--Augusten Burroughs--Well, it's been over a year since Heather and I listened to this book on tape on a trip to and from Ithaca. I was trying to think of the last book I hated, and this was it. Sorry, not so recent.

5) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia--I definitely won't say that I hate this. I'm not even in a position to say that I don't like it yet. But it is a show that was talked up to me so much by so many people that when I saw a couple of episodes I was really disappointed. I have the first two seasons on DVD sitting in the shrink wrap, so maybe once I watch a full season it will turn around. Right now it is a pretty big fail, though.

Vacation Mysteries

Hey everyone,
Just got back from California. What a fun place!
Anyways, near where we were staying, there are two places that seem really interesting. One is called the Winchester Mystery House, the other is called the Mystery Spot. We went to neither of these places, as it turns out, because of time issues...but we talked about them quite a bit because their stories are strange...

The Mystery House


This place was occupied by the widow of the Winchester rifle inventor. She moved in in 1884, and for the next 38 years, carpenters and builders worked 24 hours a day adding additions to her house. They were building up until her death. This widow visited a psychic who told her that she had to build a room in her house for every person that was killed by the Winchester rifle. As long as the workers were building, she was told, the spirits would leave her alone. Up in the attic, there are still doors and windows that were never installed because she died while all of this was ongoing. As you can see from that picture, though, this place is massive. Besides building lots of rooms, she also had things like stairways that led to nowhere, and optical windows so she could look through without her glasses on. This place is right outside of San Jose.

The Mystery Spot
This place had maybe the worst vacation brochure I've ever seen. That's probably why I grabbed it in the hotel we were staying in. Anyway, this place is 10 minutes north of Santa Cruz. This place is supposedly where gravity works differently. Some people theorize aliens buried something under it to make gravity go nuts. I don't really understand that part of the story, but I found this video that you should watch, which explains a little better.